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Govvies do not build spacecraft, contractors do. Oh, and the article even starts out that way: "and it keeps him in steady demand as a contractor at NASA’s Joh
by acheron 8y ago
Govvies do not build spacecraft, contractors do.
Oh, and the article even starts out that way: "and it keeps him in steady demand as a contractor at NASA’s John H. Glenn Research Center"... and then immediately commits some slight-of-hand to start talking about the "civil service", i.e. govvies.
Is learning to be purposefully misleading a whole class in journalism school, or does it just come naturally?
- sundaeofshock 8y agoI gotta ask: what the hell are you talking about? Can you demonstrate how this is misleading?
- mattkrause 8y agoThe argument may be that contractors aren’t technically government employees. As part of the shrink-the-government-privatize-everything mania, a lot of positions are now filled by contractors from Booz Allen, Kelly Services, and a million other firms, large and small. These people work in government facilities, often side-by-side with “real” government employees whose paychecks come straight from Uncle Sam. However, this argument totally misses the point. Some of these contractors aren’t getting paid either—and I’m not sure if contractors always get back pay. They are also limited in what they can—-and are allowed— to do without their government counterparts. Finally, the bigger picture is that these folks, along with federal employees, are part of a broader R&D ecosystem. Like a real ecosystem, if you keep destabilizing it, it’ll eventually fall apart.